


promises

by prncesselene



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, But he'll get through it, F/M, Post-TRoS, Rey Needs A Hug, and hurting others in the process, ben is the king of self inflicted emotional pain, but like ignoring the ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24833107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prncesselene/pseuds/prncesselene
Summary: Two years, and she still doesn’t know what’s become of Ben Solo. There have been no whispers of the Supreme Leader since the war ended and they dismantled what was left of the First Order. For all intents and purposes, Ben Solo could be dead. Kylo Ren definitely was. It’s been two years and she’s tried opening her mind while she meditates, reaching, grasping for the barest bit of something in the Force.She never finds anything on the other side.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 14
Kudos: 60
Collections: Reylo Jukebox Exchange





	promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WitchoftheEndorWilds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WitchoftheEndorWilds/gifts).



> This fic was written for the Reylo Jukebox Exchange! 
> 
> My song was Promises by EXES, which you should totally listen to while you read this. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Two years.

It’s been two years since she’s seen him.

For a brief moment, she had thought everything would work out as it was supposed to. He had turned to the Light, after all. He’d fought by her side. He’d come _home,_ hadn’t he?

The rest — figuring out what truly lay between them, exploring their connection, enjoying _each other_ — laid on the other side of forever, at the end of a war neither of them asked to fight.

Until he left.

He’d returned with her after Exegol, weak and frail. She’d sat by his side that entire night, checking for his pulse every few minutes, her hand gathered protectively around his wrist to feel that insistent beat. She wondered how she’d bring up the kiss. Just the thought of his lips on hers, soft and sweet, had her blushing while she rested her head on the corner of the cot they had placed him on. She couldn’t _wait_ to do it again. It was with the imprint of that kiss on her lips that she’d fallen asleep that night, next to him, waiting.

He was gone when she woke up.

No one had seen him. No one had heard from him. A single X-Wing was missing, but that was the only indication that he’d ever been there at all. It was like he was a ghost — and maybe he was. Maybe she’d made up the whole thing. She couldn’t feel his presence in the Force, only the resounding quiet hum that meant she was well and truly alone, all over again.

Rose held her as she cried, that night and many others. She knew the stinging pain of loss well, and helped Rey through the worst of it with soft coos and a gentle hand. She’d never lost someone like _this._ When it came to her parents, they were gone before she’d realized what was happening, growing up with their phantom presence in the hopes that they would come back to her. Meanwhile, he’d trotted into her life, torn everything apart, and left her behind. That was an entirely different sort of pain — and one that she had no idea how to bear.

“Rey, you need to let him go. Maybe this is for the best.”

Perhaps Rose was right. She nodded, crying it out, making promises of _letting go_ she knew she couldn’t keep. _Letting go_ just wasn’t part of Rey’s vocabulary.

Finn and Poe had tried their best to understand, listening to the stories she told of him.

Of what had _really_ happened when they fought against Snoke. Of what had come before she’d gone to him. Of how he’d arrived on Exegol, how they’d communicated through that bond that shone like a beacon of light in her mind, of how he’d saved her.

She left out the part where she’d kissed him.

 _That_ memory she kept huddled away, protected in her heart for safekeeping, though her friends had filled in the blanks on their own.

Two years, and she still doesn’t know what’s become of Ben Solo. There have been no whispers of the Supreme Leader since the war ended and they dismantled what was left of the First Order. For all intents and purposes, Ben Solo could be dead. Kylo Ren definitely was. It’s been two years and she’s tried opening her mind while she meditates, reaching, grasping for the barest bit of _something_ in the Force.

She never finds anything on the other side.

* * *

She’s on an assignment from Poe in the Ring of Kafrene, all too eager to stretch her legs from the stiff politics she’s grown used to in her new life on Coruscant. He’s sent her to talk to some mining hotshot who can help them expand trade routes, or something. She has his file on her datapad. She’s not really worried about it — everyone is all too eager to please a Jedi. Another reason she gets sent on these assignments. They need her, Poe says. She’s invaluable to the recently revived New Galactic Republic.

So she goes.

The outpost on Kafrene is busy; they say it’s a place that never sleeps. In a way, it reminds her of Jakku, that desert wasteland she’d once tried to call home. Much busier, less sand, but ultimately the same kind of people: those who had nowhere else to go. She wonders briefly why Poe, or the New Galactic Republic, need help from _anyone_ stuck in this place, but she’s beyond asking any questions. She does as she’s told, and does it with the best smile she can muster.

She likes to wander around places like this, pretending she’s a nobody again, as though so much of the galaxy’s fate hasn’t rested on her shoulders.

The smell of cheap, greasy street food wafts in the air, cut only by the intense fumes of fragrance merchants. Together, the smell is nauseating, but it’s nothing she can’t handle. She walks with a protective hand grasped around her saber, waiting for trouble. It wouldn’t be the first time.

She stops at a booth where a merchant is displaying rarities, heavy lamps and tapestries lining the walls of the tiny tent. She’s holding a necklace up to her eye, peeking through it, when she sees a head of dark hair—

 _No._ It can’t be. She shakes her head, chiding herself for making the same mistake she always does. She keeps _looking_ for him, everywhere she goes, as though she’ll run into him one day and they can pick up where they left off.

She thought she’d stopped searching for ghosts after her parents, but Ben Solo has been haunting her since the day he left her.

“Is everything alright, child? You seem upset.” The merchant eyes her warily, focusing more on the jewelry in her hand than Rey’s wellbeing. She distractedly puts the necklace down, mumbling a _fine_ , _thank you_ , and follows the dark hair she’d just seen anyway.

It’s not him. It _can’t be him._

It wasn’t him in that club they went to on Coruscant a year and a half ago, when the unique, fizzy drinks she’d been guzzling had made her believe it was, that he’d _come back for her,_ so much so that she’d run out to follow that tall frame out into the street only to find a very confused man gawking at her. Looked nothing like him, once he’d turned around. No one did.

Her friends had looked at her with a special sort of pity in their eyes that night, when they’d found her out on the crowded street, hunched over and numb, so numb she couldn’t even cry anymore.

It hadn’t been him in that cantina on Alsakan, when they’d visited to try and restore the former Imperial Academy into a new training center for pilot recruits. She didn’t get the chance to follow that time, once he’d turned to laugh with the person next to him and she’d seen it was just a stranger, her heart hardening slowly — coping with the pain of a loss that she was starting to believe would never fully heal.

She couldn’t forget him, no matter how hard she tried. He’d made a home in her head and heart, and there was nothing she could do about it except try and learn to live with that pain.

It hadn’t been him at the casino on Canto Bight, either, or in the opera house on Theed, or in any of the many, many places she’d found herself subconsciously looking for those deep brown eyes that had told her she wasn’t alone. That had left her alone _anyway._

So, it can’t possibly be him now. She’s sure of it.

But she follows, in spite of herself, because she’s a fool — a naive one at that, even after all this time. Some things never change.

She’s lucky that he’s tall like Ben was, so much so that she can see the peak of dark hair walking through Kafrene easily, uses it as a guide to track him throughout the crowded outpost. Whoever this man is, he’s in no rush to get to where he’s going. The closer she gets, the harder her heart starts beating. She zips through the figures that are ambling on the street, darting between couples and families and lone travelers like her.

He turns a corner, into a deserted alley, and she follows without question. _This is it,_ she tells herself. She’ll follow this through to the end and stop torturing herself. This will be the last time she goes hunting for something — someone — that probably doesn’t exist anymore.

Except those shoulders. She knows those shoulders, hidden as they are under the bulky leather of a vest. She’s fantasized about those shoulders, too many times to count. He’s stopped, alert, sensing her.

His face turns just slightly, and she knows that nose. She knows those _ears,_ even if his hairstyle tries to hide them _._ She knows the moles that dot those cheeks, has missed each and every single one, and her heart catches in her throat.

“It _is_ you.”

She’s equal-parts awestruck and confused, angry and overjoyed. He turns to face her, and her stomach flips when she takes in his face and hair, the scruff that adorns his chin now. He looks so different, but also so much like himself it takes her breath away.

Ben Solo is alive. He’s here.

He’s been hiding from her for two years.

“ _Rey?_ ”

She doesn’t bother hiding the tears, before she knows it they stream down her cheeks in heavy waves, tears that she’s been holding inside for months. She’s relieved, because he’s okay, healthy and strong in front of her. She’s heartbroken, because he really did leave her all alone. She doesn’t know how to detangle the warring emotions inside her. Before she knows it she’s beating on his chest with her fists, so tiny against his broad frame, but she can’t stop, doesn’t care who can see them.

They’re alone in this alley, and Kafrene is not the sort of place where anyone would stop to worry about two people arguing like this, so she unleashes the fury, the grief she’s held onto for two years, and the hope that has bloomed once again despite it all, because he’s _alive,_ and he’s right in front of her.

“How - could - you - leave?” she practically screams, her head hung low, punctuating each word with another shove against him, each and every shove stronger than the last, pushing him farther and farther until his back hits the wall. He grips her forearms, limiting her mobility.

The fight has gone out of her, and all that’s left are the tears, her hands flat against his chest.

“Why did you leave me, Ben?”

She looks up, expecting to find that mask he wore so well. Instead she sees eyes that must look like her own, clouded by a pain and longing that feels as visceral as the panging in her chest. Just the way he’d looked at her on Exegol when she’d woken up — as though he can’t believe she’s really there in front of him. This time, though, she sees regret, plain on his face. It’s in the frown of his lips, the shudder that escapes as he breathes, taking her in.

"I'm so sorry, Rey. I don't know what to say."

He pulls her against his chest and she can feel the moisture hitting her hair as he starts crying too, but she can’t feel _him_ in the Force, and she confirms what she’s known for two years. He had closed himself off from her.

She shakes her head as she pulls away to look up at him. She doesn't want an apology. “Give me one good reason. One good reason, and I’ll walk out of here and leave you alone forever, if that’s what you really want.”

He looks as if that’s _worse,_ like he’s just as heartbroken to have spent these past two years without her, but that’s impossible because he’s the one that left without a trace.

“I had no place there. I-I couldn’t stay, and I wasn’t going to force you to leave, s—”

“So you just left me? After everything? After you saved my life… after I kissed you?”

That kiss had felt like a promise, the way he gripped her just as tightly as she’d clung to him. A promise of life, happiness, a future. He’d broken that promise when he left, and she didn’t — couldn’t — understand _why._

“It wasn’t an easy choice to make, but—”

“I don’t _care,_ Ben. Two years. So much time we’re not getting back. You… you’re a _coward_!”

He doesn’t say anything, his breath still shuddering in his chest under her with each rise and fall.

Rey waits for him to speak, giving herself a moment to try and regain her composure until she realizes he’s not going to answer yet, still at a loss for words. They come softer now, her words. All the fight has been knocked out of her, and all that’s left is the visceral pain at finally having him in her arms again without knowing what went wrong.

“I can’t understand. It didn’t hurt you the way it hurt me? Is that it? Did you never feel the way about me that I felt about you?”

His sigh is thick with emotion as he tightens his hands on her forearms. His eyes close in defeat. “You think it didn’t kill me? To leave you, go off by myself?”

She doesn’t reply, instead has her gaze fixed on him as she waits for an explanation.

He almost whispers, reverently, a hand cradling her face. “Rey, there isn’t a day that’s gone by that I haven’t thought about you.” He shifts his hold to interlock their fingers. His are so much larger than hers, but somehow they fit together perfectly. “But you deserve more than this… than me. I thought you’d be better off–”

If she wasn’t so comforted by the warmth of his body under hers — it’s been _so long,_ she’s missed him _so much_ — she’d start hitting him again. She forces herself to pull away, keeping her grip on one of his hands while pointing a finger at his chest.

“You don’t get to tell me what I deserve. That’s for me to decide.”

His eyes are roving her cheeks, her lips, drifting down to take in her body — she’s wearing a new outfit made up of teal and white, one that’s a little nicer than her old robes, and he’s never seen her in anything like this. Her hair has been let down against her shoulders, too. She might miss him with a vengeance, but she’s not the same woman he left behind, either. He looks heartbroken and devastated and ravenous, like this glance at her is the first bit of food he’s had in too long.

“So, just tell me where you’ve been. Why you went. Don’t try to make me look like a fool for caring.” She knows that she won’t get over him; that’s futile. She _knows_ that. So she’s ready to hear him out, to try and understand what could have driven him to leave her.

He doesn’t answer, but she feels him opening up, the Force bursting open around him and buzzing with energy, and it feels amazing _,_ actually, to feel so connected to him again, the way they should, like she can finally breathe again for the first time in too long, but—

“No.” She pushes back, closing her eyes against the way he tries to show her snippets of his recent past. “I want you to tell me. Talk to me, Ben. Please.”

So he does.

At first she keeps distance between them, watching the bright lights of the lanterns as he explains himself while she hears him out.

He works his jaw, cracks his knuckles, looks for the right words. “After I woke up, I realized I couldn’t stay. It didn’t feel right. It felt worse leaving you behind, but I needed to. For you.”

“For me? Ben, we… when I kissed you, what did you think that was? Me saying goodbye? It was supposed to be the beginning of something,” she wipes errant tears away, surprised that she’s _still_ crying. “I stayed there all night waiting for you to wake up so I could do it again.”

He closes his eyes as though he’s been punched, like he can still feel her lips on hers. Like he’s been holding onto that memory for two years — he _has,_ she realizes, letting herself peek into his mind.

“I thought I was doing what was best for you. That you’d go on and forget me.”

She scoffs at that, rolling her eyes. The boy is an idiot, plain and simple. She tells him just as much.

“Was I supposed to stay and get taken to task by the Resistance? My place was never with you and your friends. They weren’t going to allow it, and I wasn’t going to take you away from them.”

“I would have _made_ them allow it,” she squeezes her grip on his hand, sighing. “I couldn’t have forgotten about you if I tried. And, from here on out, you don’t decide what’s best for me.”

He stops suddenly, looking at her questioningly while they stand in front of a booth where they sell spicy, fried treats on a stick. “From here on out?”

She’s breathing heavily, focused on the cart in front of her, feigning nonchalance. “You can’t possibly think I’d let you out of my sight, can you?”

She picks up one of the treats, handing over some spare credits to a grateful Togruta woman before stuffing it in her mouth. Once she’s gotten enough food in her system, she extends the treat toward him with a raised eyebrow.

A peace offering. A very valuable one at that, in her opinion. He watches her expectant face, measuring her intentions. She wiggles it in front of him.

He leans down to take a small bite, chewing alongside her as they continue walking past the booth.

Her free hand slips into his. “You’re not going anywhere. We’re done hurting each other.”

She realizes now that the past two years have been as torturous for him as they were for her. She can feel it. Where she felt betrayed and abandoned — and she would _not_ be letting him forget the way that had only deepened her old fears — his had been self-inflicted, born out of the cruel belief that he couldn’t possibly deserve to be happy. To be happy with _her._ It didn’t make it okay, what he’d done, but she understood because she understood him. For better or worse.

As the night goes by they walk hand in hand, sharing stories, trading secrets, letting themselves inch closer and closer as dawn slowly breaks around them. They spend hours wading through the side streets, taking back the time they lost together. It’s a start.

Whatever it is that they share, it’s more than just love. It’s an understanding so deep that being with him reverts her to a state of normalcy she hasn’t felt in the years since the war ended. He’s like air to her, and she’s finally raised her head above water.

His hands feel so right in hers, as they walk up and down the alleyways, and she never plans on letting go.

She tells him of the work she does in Coruscant, how she’s slowly building up a program for Force sensitives again while she goes on assignments like this every so often. She mentions that her room has space for one more, that it wouldn’t be all that bad for him to return with her. He’s no longer a threat. He can come back, and she’ll take it upon herself to make sure they welcome him with open arms. They can just _try_ telling her no.

He tells her of the strange people he’s met now that he’s explored the galaxy as a free man, mentions friends he’s made along the way. He seems even freer now than he did on Exegol, Rey admits. He’s spent his life trapped under legacies he couldn’t bear, and something about this time has given him a new lease on life, a purpose, and he’s much more open with her because of it. She curls her arm protectively around his bicep when he mentions a woman who had propositioned him once, delighted in the fact that he’d told her he was spoken for, even if he was convinced he’d never see her again.

“I had — _have_ — no interest in anyone who isn't you, Rey. Never did, never will.”

She lets her head rest against his arm, humming her approval. “Good. We’re on the same page, then.”

The night goes on, and he’s turned to face her now, her back against a wall in another secluded alley. He’s spent a few months here, knows it like the back of his hand by now.

He leans down, and she thinks he’s going to kiss her, closes her eyes in preparation for the delightful feeling of those plush lips on hers, but he leans down further and nuzzles the crook of her shoulder, inhaling the scent of her, taking a strand of her loose hair in his fingers. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Rey shudders, her arms wrapping around his torso. She doesn’t want to cry anymore, can’t when this feels so _good,_ so right. “I hope you enjoyed missing me, because you are never leaving my side again, Ben Solo.”

He presses a chaste kiss just under her ear, the scruff he’s adopted tickling her neck. It feels tantalizingly good. A distant, logical part of her realizes this is something to be done in private, not an alley on an outpost just as dawn is breaking, but she can’t care. She wants him to kiss her, to claim her right here where everyone can see.

So he does. He takes her chin between his fingers, tipping her face up to his before pressing his lips to hers, his soft mouth a gift she’d only gotten a taste of before he’d ripped it away from her. Receiving that gift again feels like heaven.

He attempts to keep it chaste before she grips at the fabric of his shirt, pulling her towards him, up on the tips of her toes to deepen it as she sighs into his mouth. It feels like that first kiss they shared, but even better, because this time it really is the beginning of something new. Something they can build together. She’s not letting him get away this time.

She wraps her arms around him, letting herself get lost in this dank alleyway, taking care to demonstrate just _how much_ she missed him, dreamed of him, the things she'd do if they ever saw each other again.

She may have been a fool for looking for him everywhere she went, but she couldn’t have given up. Not on him. She wouldn’t let herself lose anyone else.

He leans away to look at her again, his eyes warm, so brown and finally real, finally in front of her. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I promise.”


End file.
